


by the weyrwoman, wise and true

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Sex, F/M, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21947368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: Ramoth rises for the first time, and Kylara ascends as Weyrwoman.
Relationships: F'lar | Fallarnon/Kylara
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	by the weyrwoman, wise and true

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calenlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this! Some quick canon notes at the bottom.
> 
> Warnings: Canon typical bad relationship skills on F'lar's part

"The bronzes are blooding their kills!" rang in her ears for what seemed like hours. She could never remember how she got to the feeding grounds, how she mustered the will to stop Ramoth from gorging herself; let alone what came after.

Ramoth rose, and Kylara--

She was gone, utterly gone. It was sex as she had never before experienced it - and she had once thought _pain_ could sweep her away. Later, later she would wake to sweat on her skin and salt in her teeth and her heavy braid weighing her down, but now she was scales and wings and mountain air, crisp and cold and thin, so unlike Telgar from whence she'd come. 

She had planned for T'bor, liked him the best, really; and Ramoth was agreeable enough on the subject of Orth; but they had not quite accounted for Mnementh, for F'lar who returned unsuccessful from the High Reaches. Didn't he have his Lady Holder love Lessa? But unmistakably it was Mnementh who slid his wings against hers, who twined her neck, and they were falling...

Kylara knew F'lar against her but didn't know where they were. "Now," he was whispering into her, "Now we bring them safely home."

But Kylara didn't want to be home, wanted the freedom of the skies, the triumphant anger of the rising queen; she fell back to the bed, quenched, feeling strangely disappointed.

 _Is something wrong_? Ramoth asked, and already Kylara was falling to reassure her:

 _No, my love, nothing_ , she said. _We shall have to be content with F'lar._

If he shook her again the way he had when she first flew Ramoth, she was going to slap him again, though. Fair was fair, and he'd best not humiliate her in front of the entire Weyr.

Then her idiot brother Larad had to show up with a couple thousand hotheads.

"Drunk on new beer, no doubt," Kylara sneered. F'lar looked up, startled. "Well. I told R'gul it was a poor idea to stop me writing. You'd better let me talk to him." Never mind she'd had little desire to in the first place and hadn't taken much pushing; more convenient that it be R'gul's fault now.

A thousand small slights and injures vanished in the flap of Ramoth's mighty wings, and more particularly in the look on Larad's face to see his sister leap from the neck of a queen dragon.

"My brother!" she called, striding forward. She imagined the picture she made, red skirts swirling around her - she'd shivered _between_ , but riding leathers just didn't make the same impression - and her long, unbound hair gleaming a shade off Ramoth's hide. She reveled in it. "A word?"

"Kylara," Larad said, wide eyed, and having swung off his runner, could not with dignity retreat when she hugged him. "We hadn't heard--"

"Ramoth rose for the first time recently," Kylara said, and invented, "The announcement was due to go out." She looked over the Lord Holders, spitefully happy to see the wind had gone out of their sails: Kylara was not some unknown, semi-human Weyrwoman, but one of their own, the full sister of their leader. She tallied them up: Meron of Nabol was the only one likely to persist if she could just get Larad on her side. "You had grievances?" she said, and smiled. 

"The Weyr is," Larad said, wrong footed, as he always was - clumsy and wishy washy, unable to make her mind. Oh, he was intelligent enough, competent enough - except that it was Kylara who was older, Kylara who should have had his title and his recognition, and Kylara who was the stronger of the two. "That is to say, our harvests--"

"Have been bountiful across Pern." Kylara saw F'lar land out of the corner of her eye, and resolved to hurry up. If she solved it before he had a chance, they might make a number of things clearer between the two of them, too. "We drink to your success in the Weyr," she said, and smiled through her teeth. "--That is, when we have wine to drink."

Larad kept a brave face, but she could feel him flinch to realize he'd been slighting his own sister provisions. Oh, this was a beautiful day for Kylara, the happiest of her life.

Then she saw the hovering dragons to the sides had additional passengers, and ground her teeth into something that could pass for her previous smile.

 _Damn_ F'lar. She'd had it in hand!

They both started shouting the instant they landed back in the Weyr:

"How dare you--" F'lar screamed.

"I cannot believe--" Kylara was higher pitched; she had experimented in adolescence enough to say with confidence that her voice could shatter glass. F'lar broke off, slapping a hand to one ear, so she could finish "I was handling it! Larad is my brother, you good-for-nothing herdbeast-fucking rube! That's why I told them to raid Telgar, because I knew he'd die on the spot when he realized I was portioning out what he saw fit to send, I _was handling it_!"

F'lar was staring, apparently struck dumb. She snarled under her breath, turned on her heel to pace away from him; she couldn't bear his face right now. 

" _Shards_ , do I have to do everything in this Weyr? Is it too much to ask that I actually be informed of what you do, when it directly affects my duties? That Manora, the headwoman of this Weyr, know what exactly you're pilfering and when in sufficient advance to know whether we're going to survive the next winter?"

"Kylara," F'lar said.

"And don't you Kylara me!" She spun again, glaring. "I had enough of that do-this mend-that keep-your-eyes-down program in my native hold! I'm Weyrwoman, F'lar, and you may be Weyrleader but your position depends on my willingness to have you when Ramoth next rises, so if I were you--"

He was laughing. Why was he _laughing_? She stalked forwarded, hand raised unconsciously; but F'lar caught it before she could hit him.

She blinked. He kissed the inside of her wrist and lowered it, gently, folding her hand around her palm.

"We all know," she said, although at a much lower volume, "That you'd prefer Lessa. Fine, maybe Lessa would have been a better Weyrwoman - maybe she can conjure grain and produce cloth out of nothing, maybe she can endure _two years_ of R'gul's lectures without rebelling or stirring from her Weyr, but you don't have Lessa. _Lessa_ is at Ruatha with Lady Gemma's spawn, sorting out how many acres of wheat and how many of barley to plant and which runners to use for stud next spring. You have Kylara of Telgar as Weyrwoman, and you'd best get used to it!"

"Kylara, I am, I do want you as Weyrwoman," F'lar said, but she wasn't really listening until he kissed her.

"We'll solve the next crisis together," she said weakly, aware she was reeling against his touch. Usually it was a blessing to turn rough handling into arousal, at least for a holder woman, but as Weyrwoman--

"Together," F'lar said, instead of arguing as she'd expected; and he went to his knees, this time, not her. "Kylara. I'm sorry I didn't consult you before enacting that plan. I admit that I wouldn't have if you were in the meeting chamber, either. But I can't change that in the future if you aren't present when decisions are made."

She was well aware he was looking for a reciprocal apology but he wasn't going to get it. "I'll be present next time," was the best she'd allow him, and he might have sighed; but then he pushed her skirts up and it was irrelevant.

Just as well they'd ended up in her Weyr and _not_ the meeting chamber this time, Kylara thought, which was probably the first voluntary concern for appropriate public behavior she'd ever had. Then she stopped thinking.

**Author's Note:**

> Larad comments that he hasn't heard anything from his sister since she was taken on Search in canon, where Kylara didn't Impress. Lessa doesn't have anyone she wants to contact in the first place, so it doesn't directly come up with her, but given R'gul apparently doesn't let her leave her Weyr I think disallowing Kylara from contacting Larad would be consistent.
> 
> I've often thought that Lessa, despite her characterization, could stand to be a bit more assertive in _Dragonflight_ especially. Since Kylara will approximately never refrain from making a huge dramatic production of a perceived slight, she was really fun to stick in Lessa's shoes briefly


End file.
